We have said how huge that was all season, losing a season series to the Blue Jackets is pathetic. That being said I see the Wings really coming together in front of Jimmy in the finally games....Playoff hockey starts for us NOW

I agree. From here on out every game till the end is like a playoff game.

I'd hate for the streak to come to an end, but what really is gained by making the playoffs and embarrasingly being booted in the first round? Maybe missing the playoffs would serve as an eye opener to Holland that his team really isn't all that good? Maybe missing the playoffs lights a fire under his butt to make some real improvements to this team in the future?

If we miss the playoffs, they'll just say it was because of injuries and not change anyway.

I can't wrap my head around "what's the point?" Sports is about winning. That's it. I don't even have a logical explanation for it, but if you can get even one point ahead of the next guy, you do it. What's the point of reasoning it? The whole point is to compete. I don't care if we miss out on a high draft pick, the whole point of a season is to win.

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It will be a shame if the Wings don't make the post-season... almost inconceivable. Yes, I do think that word means what I think it means.

If that happens, it's not like the Wings didn't try and didn't know it could happen. They're doing their best with the situation. That I believe... not sure more bodies or different ones (for too much money) would have made that big a difference in Year One of our Lidstrom-less existence.

It will be a shame if the Wings don't make the post-season... almost inconceivable. Yes, I do think that word means what I think it means.

If that happens, it's not like the Wings didn't try and didn't know it could happen. They're doing their best with the situation. That I believe... not sure more bodies or different ones (for too much money) would have made that big a difference in Year One of our Lidstrom-less existence.

Guys missing from last years team:

Lidstrom

Holstrom

Stuart

Hudler

Bertuzzi

Helm

that's 6 regulars out 18 regular skaters - fully 1/3 of the team.

Veteran guys that they brought in to help

Coliaccavo

Sammuelson

Tootoo

2 of the 3 have missed almost the entire season.

Rookies that are filling in:

Lashof

Smith

Kindl (partial season experience)

Andersson

Nyquist/Kindl

Based on this, just to make the playoffs have been a struggle.

I am glad we didn't mortgage our future. One or two more expensive free agents were not going to replace the 1/3 of the team that we lost.

If we need to miss the playoffs for this team to finally start making some much needed changes, maybe we should bite the bullet. I'm not suggesting the team purposely lose, I'm saying that if we end up not making it this season, try not to look at it as the end of the world. The team is in trouble, and maybe we need sit in the corner with the dunce cap on our head for a while and figure out what needs to happen so it gets fixed.

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I really want us to make the playoffs because I believe anything can happen once your in. But at the same time, I have not been disappointed with this season. If we miss, we know we have given it our best effort, and we are setting ourselves up for the future.

I think the positives this season outweigh the negatives. The development of our young guys has been great. Also, our Defense is turing into a solid, VERY young group. That is huge for future success.

And if we miss the playoffs, we get a decently high pick to add to the system. That would be huge to go with our prospects now.

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I really want us to make the playoffs because I believe anything can happen once your in. But at the same time, I have not been disappointed with this season. If we miss, we know we have given it our best effort, and we are setting ourselves up for the future.

I think the positives this season outweigh the negatives. The development of our young guys has been great. Also, our Defense is turing into a solid, VERY young group. That is huge for future success.

And if we miss the playoffs, we get a decently high pick to add to the system. That would be huge to go with our prospects now.

I see what you're saying, and I agree on one hand.....but on the other hand, you have to factor in the demoralization of missing the playoffs for the first time since before Dekeyser, Lashoff, and Nyquist were even born. That is a big factor worth considering.

I'd hate for the streak to come to an end, but what really is gained by making the playoffs and embarrasingly being booted in the first round? Maybe missing the playoffs would serve as an eye opener to Holland that his team really isn't all that good? Maybe missing the playoffs lights a fire under his butt to make some real improvements to this team in the future?

"What is gained by making the playoff and embarrassingly being booted in the first round?" you ask.

Answer: Not being embarrassed by being booted BEFORE the playoffs begin.

I can't believe people actually think it's more embarrassing to make the playoffs and lose than to MISS the playoffs. Crazy!

I am glad we didn't mortgage our future. One or two more expensive free agents were not going to replace the 1/3 of the team that we lost.

If the only two options you've got to fix a team that got massacred in the first round of the playoffs last year are a few aging vets who weren't all that good to begin with (Sammy, Colaiacovo, Tootoo) OR a bunch of kids with no real NHL experience, then I'd say you've f***ed up.

Management keeps "doing all it can" to improve this team and that's the best it's got. Rookies or plugs? What the hell?

Remember when we won the cup in 2008. Our third line was Hudler, Filppula, and Sammy. Back then Sammy was only a third line player making 1.2 million per season. Now at 36 years old he's a top sixer worth 3. In what universe? Similarly, back then young guys like Hudler and Filppula were expected to step into supplementary roles until they rounded out their game. Now, we need Nyquist or Tatar to be top sixers or else we have to use Cleary or Abby? Yes we miss Helm and Bert, but only one of those guys is a top six forward. The rest of the top two units are intact and they still can't buy a goal. Does Bert make that big of a difference, or where we expecting Helm to be an offensive dynamo this season?

Mismanagement dudes. Plain and simple.

"What is gained by making the playoff and embarrassingly being booted in the first round?" you ask.

Answer: Not being embarrassed by being booted BEFORE the playoffs begin.

I can't believe people actually think it's more embarrassing to make the playoffs and lose than to MISS the playoffs. Crazy!

Who cares about embarrassing? Since Holland is FINALLY suggesting that we're in a rebuild (only after missing out on Jagr I might add) we might as well think about the long term. And in the long term missing the playoffs and getting the higher pick is probably better than making it, losing early, and getting the 20th overall or whatever it would be. They don't play for bragging rights, they play to win the cup, and even if me make the playoffs we're likely not winning anything.

Also, the fact that we're having this discussion is embarrassing no matter what happens with the playoffs.

Is it really though? We're running on fumes this year. Do you think this team is anywhere close to a playoff team if you take Datsyuk or Zetterberg away? I don't, at all. And neither of those guys are getting any younger; we don't even have to touch on the Datsyuk rumors given that fact.

We also got a lot of strong efforts from the kids that are here mostly due to injuries. But can they do that consistently at this point? We haven't seen many examples of it. I think it's one thing for a guy to come up and fill in for an injured player and play above average for where he's at in development, and an entirely different thing for the same guy to get the full time promotion to the big team. There's a lot more pressure and it's a much tougher grind. We've seen plenty of examples in the last 5-6 years of kids coming up and dazzling on call-ups for a few games at a time and then when forced to answer the bell full time, they all but disappeared. Sometimes they get their acts together after some of the nerves wear off, they adjust to the NHL game and get more experience in general. But as strong as our youth has been, I think it's naive to expect them to be able to play this well in a full time role right off the bat in the coming years.

And another problem having to do with decline is the fact that we have struggled to attract high-end talent lately. That's not getting any better anytime soon, playoffs or not, until Holland either makes some splashes or we start drafting guys that can really make a splash a few years down the line. For that to happen, basically, we have to suck for awhile. Holland seems incapable at this point of building a true contender via trade or free agency, so perhaps the best option for the long-run success is to focus on the draft and trade what assets we have to stock up the farm. I want to win as badly as anyone and I've been pissed off about Holland's lack of upkeep with this team the last few years when we still had Lidstrom in the fold. That is when we needed to continue to go for it even if it meant trading on our future. If you maintain a top team, you're going to attract the kind of talent that will keep you a top team. You have leverage, and you build your team off of that.

Now we're an overachieving, middle of the road team at best, competitive mostly because we still have Dats and Z in the fold every night. That's all good and well, but it's not sustainable, and again, if Holland can't bring in talent through trade or free agency and we keep drafting in the back of the middle, we're going to be in a lot more trouble as Dats and Z age and we have no premier talent to build around. It's just going to keep getting worse, and that's certainly not going to help us bring in talent. So again, at this point, especially this season, I think we're better off doing all we can to draft as high as we can and as often as we can. I hate losing too, but you've got to be realistic about the situation that we're in if you care about being even a semi-competitive team 4-5 years from now.

If nothing changes and we continue down this middle ground, grinding down Dats and Z until they just can't carry us anymore, we're going to be a terrible, terrible team in a few years. You think it was brutal losing Rafalski and Lidstrom in a year? We still had two superstars to carry the load. Now imagine losing those two superstars that are in many ways the forward equivalent of what Lidstrom and Rafalski were to this team's defense, but the top guy you've got to carry the load and lead is an above-average, frequently-injured Kronwall, who can't seem to figure out how to stay out of the box. Oh yeah, and he's aging too. That's reality if we don't bring in new talent through trade or free agency or draft much better talent than we have, and again, there's only one way to do that.

"What is gained by making the playoff and embarrassingly being booted in the first round?" you ask.

Answer: Not being embarrassed by being booted BEFORE the playoffs begin.

I can't believe people actually think it's more embarrassing to make the playoffs and lose than to MISS the playoffs. Crazy!

Six of one, half dozen of the other, really.

And as has already been said, who cares about being embarrassed? What about what's best for the team moving forward? There's really nothing embarrassing about missing the playoffs this year anyways. That we're still in it at all is an accomplishment given the injuries, the personnel losses, and the inability of Holland to do much of anything that's actually had an effect on this team in the last couple years, especially this year considering that over half the guys he signed have spent the vast majority of the season on IR. It doesn't get sillier than that, so why are we talking about embarrassment? The bottom line is that the best thing that could come of this year is getting a higher draft pick at this point. This is not a Cup-ready team. Not even close.

Suter and Parise were always going to play together in Minnesota. Parise wanted to go home, and Suter wanted to go with Parise. There's nothing Holland could've done about that. He can't force Parise and Suter to want to play in Detroit all of a sudden. They became joined at the hip and hitched their wagon to the Wild, for better or worse.

That being said, the team failed to acquire anything of substance after they knew they wouldn't be getting Suter and Parise. It was a domino effect. All the "plan-B" players were already gone by the time Detroit knew they lost out on both players.

Brunner has been a nice surprise, and Tootoo has been doing his job admirably. The rest of Holland's band-aid box...not so much.